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10 February 2015

I had high expectations when I saw this new flavour of Cadbury Finger biscuits, Salted Peanut actually sounds different and interesting. I like a mix of sweet and salty and I love nuts, so I was keen to tuck in. Once the wrapper was peeled back I could smell the peanut and knew these were going to be something a bit different. I bit in and thought I’d had a piece of nut in my biscuit, but on closer inspection realised it was too crispy. This led me to investigate the ingredient list a bit further.

Now unless my eyes are deceiving me I can’t see that they contain peanuts, and then the realisation hit that the peanut flavour must be entirely artificial? The box even states “May contain: nuts”. May??? Whats is that about, of course they SHOULD contain nuts, they are supposed to be peanut flavoured for goodness sake!
The funny thing about knowing they don’t contain nuts is that this changed how I viewed the biscuits. I’m sure I enjoyed that nutty chocolatey slightly salty first biscuit, but with the second one I was armed with a new piece of knowledge and suddenly they tasted artificial, I accept this might be in my head. I eat plenty of sweets with artificial flavourings that don’t phase me, but there is something homely about a biscuit flavour that makes me feel it should be real. The fake nut texture wheat crunchies also seemed a bit weird in the context of things. The trouble is, I liked the flavour, and I should have loved these biscuits, if only that bit of peanut had been proper, I would have happily munched my way through the whole box! Oh well.

There is also a Salted Caramel version of these biscuits, well of course there is, everything seems to be flavoured with salted caramel or some derivative of caramel or toffee etc. These were very nice, but not as dramatic in the taste, chocolatey but with a pleasing hint of caramel sweetness. There wasn’t much salt, it was gentle and the focus was on a soft hint of extra brown sugary goodness. This however was the safe option of the two new flavours, nice but not playing too far away from the original formula. They won’t get “wows”, but they will all get eaten up.